BAGHDAD - A series of bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people across Iraq on Thursday in a bloody day of attacks underscoring the country's struggle with a stubborn insurgency more than
half a year after the U.S. military withdrew.

In the worst of the blasts that erupted in the morning and ended in the evening, at least 27 people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a cafe in Baghdad's Zafraniya district as Iraqis took to the streets to end daily fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Shortly before the Zafraniya blast, another bomb tore into a busy intersection outside a popular ice cream store in the mainly Shi'ite district of Sadr City, killing 16 and wounding 40 more, police and hospital officials said.

"I was sitting in the cafe when I felt a huge spark like electricity in my eyes, and a huge explosion. After that I woke up in hospital with injuries to my arms and shrapnel in my back," said Amjad Saad, 23, a college student.

No group claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombings and shootings, but a local al Qaeda affiliate and other Sunni Islamist groups have carried out at least one major assault a month since the last American troops left in December.